Exit Interview: Jon Jay

Last year, I spent the time immediately after the season examining each player that had made an appearance in St. Louis during the season. This series was well received and so I’m bringing this idea back for the 2013 offseason. More summaries than anything, I imagine the player coming into Mike Matheny‘s office and having a short conference before heading home for the winter. Stats are just the ones accumulated for the Cardinals during the regular season.

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Positives: Jay continued to play a good center field (though not as well as that errorless streak would make it appear) and, when he was on one of his hot streaks, was a productive hitter in the middle/late portion of the lineup. Jay hit much better in the second half (.791 OPS) than the first (.671 OPS) and like the rest of the team did well with runners in scoring position (.828 OPS).

Negatives: Jay started the season in the leadoff slot but lost the handle on that fairly quickly. In that spot he hit .200 and struck out over 20% of the time. Again, Jay’s defense was not nearly as outstanding as it was made out to be, though he could come up with some dynamic catches at times. He was pretty much helpless against left-handers, going just .220/.306/.314 against them.

Outlook: Jay was the Top Goat on the site and in all the years I’ve been doing this, the Top Goat has never played another inning for the Cardinals. That will likely change next year–I don’t expect Jay to be part of any trade given the uncertainty of how Oscar Taveras can handle the position–but I don’t think Jay will likely be a full-time starter next year. At best, he platoons with Shane Robinson, which would give him the bulk of the playing time, but not the entire burden.